Paramount Soldiers To Close Air Force Scribe’s Spec ‘Matriarch’ On Vets Day

EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures and Red Wagon stepped up last night to close a spec script deal for Matriarch, an elevated thriller in the vein of Prisoners and The Silence Of The Lambs. It’s appropriate that it sold on Veterans Day after a major scrum, since the neophyte scribe, Eric Koenig, is an active member of the Air Force. He is a dentist, stationed in Palmdale, CA, and this is his first script sale and it went for mid six-figures.

Red Wagon’s Doug Wick and his execs Nicki Cortese and Lucas Weisendanger got the script midday, and Wick drove to the screening of Selma and pulled out production chief Adam Goodman to convince him to make an offer. Exclusive negotiations began at 9 PM and the deal closed shortly after. Ashley Brucks will shepherd for the studio. Doug Wick will produce with Rock Shaink. The thriller follows two powerful female characters going head to head as a prison psychologist has 48 hours to convince a serial killer to disclose the location of her final victim before she is executed.

Paradigm agented the writers, who are managed by Benderspink and lawyered by Jeff Frankel.